Biking in Baltimore
Traffic Enforcement for Bicyclist Safety from Chicago Bicycle Program on Vimeo.
A training video for Chicago Police Officers created in partnership between the Chicago Police Department & The Chicago Department of Transportation. Funded with a grant from the Illinois Department of Transportation Division of Traffic Safety.
Continue reading “Chicago Police Say It Loud: Bikes Belong”
Mark your calendar for the 14th annual Baltimore Book Festival on September 25-27, 2009. This year’s authors include Buzz Aldrin, Gwen Ifill, Ralph Nader, Chris Gardner, Amiri Baraka, Ingrid Hoffmann, Farai Chideya, Maureen McCormick, Dale DeGroff, Lourdes Castro, Adam Ried, Mordicai Gerstein and James Warhola.
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Ride your bike and park in our new bike parking zone – 600 block of Charles Street, east side of the street.
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NEW FOR 09! If you live or work downtown – the festival is opening at noon on Friday. Spend your lunch hour with us: browsing for books, enjoying author presentations and sampling the menus of our tasty food vendors. JUST ANNOUNCED for lunchtime Friday – GMA’s workplace guru Tory Johnson will be sharing invaluable career advice from her new book, Fired to Hired.
Continue reading “Baltimore Book Festival”
An excellent op-ed from a senior at Yale University about traffic safety issues on the Ivy League campus.
Timothy Ellison’s article focuses in part on the elimination of right turns on red (RTORs), a concept many other pedestrian-rich cities throughout the United States have adopted. Eliminating RTORs was a key recommendation in this year’s Nelson/Nygaard gap analysis study of Downtown New Haven.
Among the comments that follow Ellison’s op-ed:
– Yale students are constantly telling anyone who will listen how threatened they feel by reckless drivers, and yet nothing is ever done. Yale and New Haven, this is a life and death issue. Please take it more seriously!
– But I also agree that drivers in the city have gotten increasingly willing to drive through red lights, and when on a bike I am also aware of how crazy traffic and drivers have gotten. So its a complex problem. Traffic calming and more pedestrian friendly routes are for sure needed.
– On several occasions I’ve witnessed that a police officer ignoring red light violations, in particular when drivers ignore do-not-turn signs. Of course, drivers have every incentive to violate traffic laws when they don’t have to fear the consequences.
– The situation on the streets around the campus, which were designed in the 1950s for high-volume auto traffic and never converted back into pedestrian-friendly streets, is completely unacceptable. Numerous students and Yale affiliates are injured or killed every year. Yale already pays tens of millions a year for security – they’ve done a great job increasing the feeling of security on campus late at night, and in terms of street crime, the campus is now the safest urban university in the United States. Next, Yale needs to immediately 1) step up the traffic enforcement, 2) following the model of Cambridge, MA or any number of other cities, step up and commit to financing the reconstruction of safe crosswalks throughout the campus, as they have in the past in areas where students have been killed, and 3) publish and implement a bicycle and pedestrian master plan that makes the campus accessible for everyone, not just drivers.
Continue reading “Safe Campus, Unsafe Streets”
I did not report this early on as it sounded like the cyclist could have been a bit on the crazy side but as stated on the video link “I am concerned that this footage has been available from very early on, but has been obfuscated thru editing decisions. This has contributed to confusion and possibly unwarranted slander towards Mr. Sheppard [the cyclists], and unfairly protects Bryant [the motorist] from being depicted in a negative manner.”
Continue reading “Bryant Rams Toronto Cyclist Sheppard – Security Camera views "Accident"”
For about two hours on Tuesday, Maj. Jim Russell of the FSU Police Department pedaled the streets in an effort to educate motorists.
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Florida state law requires motorists to allow three feet between their vehicle and a cyclist, but the FSU PD wanted to know the extent to which local drivers follow the law — or even know about it.
Wearing a helmet, T-shirt and khaki shorts and with a backpack slung behind him, Russell rode a mountain bike along the 300 block of Stadium Drive near the FSU College of Medicine.
He was conducting a bit of an experiment. While Russell rode, two officers in marked cars were positioned to make stops of motorists who failed to stay three feet away from Russell and another officer tracked the number of vehicles that passed.
Only four vehicles were stopped out of 104. Those stopped were given a warning and educated about the law. Most of the four did not know the law, and the majority of drivers gave more space.
"Nobody scared me or gave me a heart attack," Russell said. "And most people gave more room. It was nice because when we pulled people over, we were able to get their reaction and educate them."
Local cyclist Karen Loewen estimates that 5 percent of the drivers she encounters don’t allow room on the road.
"It’s more like 5 percent of them are doing it out of spite rather than out of ignorance," Loewen said. "My impression is that people know they’re not supposed to be that close, but they don’t think we should be on the road."
The vice president of Capital City Cyclists, Loewen also believes cyclists need to be educated about how to ride on the street.
Educating drivers about the law is at the heart of Joe Mizereck’s business called threefeetplease.com. Last October, Mizereck began selling bright yellow shirts with "It’s the law" and "Three Feet Please" written on the front and back.
"I’m pleased those guys at FSU are (educating the public)," Mizereck said. "Of the 15 states that have this law, this is the first time I’ve heard of an agency trying to figure out how to enforce the law. It was a smart move."
Continue reading “FSU Police officers teach motorists ‘three feet’ law”
Just over a week ago, our Mayor’s office [D.C.] had a ghost bike removed from public space without alerting the family of the cyclist that was killed. This got some decent press attention here, and is helping us make additional improvements to the intersection where the crash occurred. The family is understandably quite upset at this callous treatment and despite repeated attempts to contact his office about the removal he has still not responded. The bike was removed at the request of a local business owner after about a year of being locked up in the same place. Apparently, the business owner that thought it was unsightly even though the family and friends of the cyclist did a good job of maintaining it. It had become an important symbol to the bike community and reminded us all to be careful. Early this morning, in response to the removal of the ghost bike, 22 new ghost bikes appeared at the same intersection. It was quite a sight to see.
Continue reading “Ghost Bike Removal and Reappearance”
[In the spirit of the world wide web I’ll start by providing a little excerpt from Wash Cycle quoting NPR, follow the links for more information.]
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"This change going on on the streets is happening on the fly," [Noah Budnic of the North American Alliance for Biking and Walking] says. "They’re learning how to behave differently and drive and bike on streets that are still designed for cars. So there’s a lot of tension because people are just making it up as they go along."
Road rage expert David Weisenthal, a psychologist at Toronto’s York University, says it’s that sense of unpredictability, combined with a desire for revenge, that leads to conflicts.
"We know we will never see the other drivers again who are in front of us, in back of us, alongside of us," Weisenthal says. "We also have a sense of anonymity so that we feel freer to act in what may very often be a nasty manner."
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Continue reading “Toronto Bike-Car Incident Serves as Catalyst”
From John Hopkins Corporate Security’s Communications
It has been reported to Corporate Security that staff members have been assaulted off campus while riding their bicycles on E. Monument and E. Madison Streets between the East Baltimore medical campus and downtown. Groups of juveniles have attacked the staff members and, in one case, attempted to rob the victim. The Baltimore City Police Department has been notified.
Staff members are advised to avoid these areas altogether as much as possible, and are further advised to be extra cautious if they choose to ride their bicycles on or near E. Monument Street or E. Madison Street.
St. Mary’s claims lead in environmental design race
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In a nod to the state’s Smart Growth policies, the school was built in one of the county’s designated growth areas, a planned community called Wildewood carved out of the woods north of Lexington Park and the booming Patuxent Naval Air Station. But in a planning breakdown that’s all too typical in sitting new schools in the suburbs, there’s no sidewalk along the parkway that connects the school to the neighboring houses – though there are marked bicycle lanes.
That’s about the only glitch in the green-ness of Evergreen, but it doesn’t seem to faze the students, faculty or staff.
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Continue reading “Schools going green big-time”
The Council is scheduled to vote on the measure on September 8.
A Message from Chief Jim Johnson:
The speed camera program has one goal – public safety. It is meant to protect our school children and other residents from drivers who violate the law. By their comments at community meetings, in their e-mail messages, and through their contact with members of the Police Department, members of the public are demanding safe streets in Baltimore County. This automated enforcement will help the Police Department accomplish that goal.
Continue reading “Baltimore County Council to vote on speed cameras in school zone”